Ten Ways Final Fantasy XIII Could Have Been the Best Final Fantasy Ever: Disc 1

GameDynamo - "Is there a game more controversial in the Final Fantasy series than XIII? I've been conflicted about FFXIII for a long time. There are moments of brilliance punctuated by confusing ones that deter from the overall experience. Most people fall into the category of "this game absolutely sucks and represents the fall of the JRPG." I respectfully disagree and believe the game had the potential to be the most amazing Final Fantasy ever, falling short for a number of reasons. "

[Godmars290]

1 - Have a clue.
2 - Don't split creative resources mid-production of XIII to make XIII-2.

[j-blaze]

they didn't split or cut anything to make XIII-2 and this not the first time they make a sequel for a final fantasy game, also the final vision of FFXIII was almost 40GB...

OT: why 10? i think there was only one way and that's if Toriyama and Daisuke Watanabe were kicked out of this project from the beginning!

[iamtehpwn]

The things FFXIII needed boiled down 3 things:

1) Sprawling world with a lots of Variety--ie more to do than just walk down a hallway and fight monsters. Minigames, Exploration, Airships, etc. The game, at the end of the day, it felt like there was nothing to do in it.

2) Better Characters with better Character depth. XIII's villain is unknown until the end. Caius made for a decent villain XIII-2 because he was well defined with motive--and actually had a deeper connection with the characters. Orphan/Barthandelus was a highly "eeeeeeh" villain. The characters in XIII are unrelatable. There should've a greater focus on Lightning's character.

3) Explaining the story and the world better. Fabula nova Crystallis isn't a bad myth, but it's damn near impossible to tell what it's about from playing XIII. Unlike previous FF's where the world was explain through character interactions, XIII lacked that entirely.

[maniacmayhem]

Definitely agree with you and especially point 3.
This was the first FF game where I had little clue as to the understanding of what the hell is going on. Part of it was because I didn't care enough about any of the character to...well...care.

Someone told me on here a while back that to understand you have to go back and read the data logs. That to me is poor story telling. I don't mind reading data logs to get a better understanding of a back story or more depth to a character but having to read it just to understand the overall story is complete nonsense.

[despair]

Don't agree at all, there was a lot of lore in FFXIII and while quite a bit required reading the datalog it was still a well thought out world and not at all hard to follow. Not everything needs to be explained in every detail and enough was given to get a good idea on how the world worked.

I agree somewhat about the characters, there was character development but it was more artificial and forced than fluid. I completely disagree with the idea that it should've focused more on lightning and I liked that they spread the story across all characters and pretty much focused on all of them rather than single out one.

The main boss was not too bad, its so damn cliched to get a big baddie that you have to take down that, having more of the ideals and questioning the world/personal views being the main opponent and the main bad guy just a catalyst for that is much better.

Finally I don't think the story would've worked well with a truly open world experience and things like minigames and too many sidequests. It just feels out of place considering the nature of the story. This is not like most other FF or RPG games where the team is on a quest or some mission of some kind. This was literally a fugitive run and stopping to bet on chocobo races or help a guy clear out some monsters seems out of place.

I'm not saying it couldn't or shouldn't have been implemented in some way but the linearity of the game is blown wayy out of proportion and just panders to what people automatically want rather than what works for the game.

People complain when JRPGs are like the games of the past and they complain when they try to evolve with the times, so there's no pleasing everyone.

I liked FFXIII a lot and I liked pretty much every previous FF main title game as well, I'm currently playing XIII-2 and its pretty good so far as well. No one can really give a proper formula for the perfect JRPG and trying to do so will just result in some cookie cutter generic games.

[Wolfbiker]

X was Linear and X was fantastic

FF is different with every entry, you will love some and you will hate some.

[Hicken]

"Finally I don't think the story would've worked well with a truly open world experience"

Thank you. As much as it's a staple of MOST FF games to be very open world, that just would not have fit the story of XIII at all. But instead of people understanding how the linearity fit into the game, they just complained about it not being open.

As for the characters, I loved them. I think part of what made me like them so much was the game forcing you to use just two characters, and those two being radically different in personality or ideology. Their interactions allowed you to learn more about each character in a natural way- as they learned about each other- and it kinda forced them to face themselves and change.

[iamtehpwn]

You guys I never said or meant make FFXIII open world. I said it should've had more variety and more things to exploration. Exploration doesn't mean Nonlinear. Even X had a level of exploration. And no FF has been "Open World" entirely, it's just allowed to have sometime to do something differently.

And all honesty, if that type of gameplay didn't fit the story, that's the type of scenario where you do adjust the story to allow gameplay mechanics to work.

[Godmars290]

@Jabberwocky237
"X was Linear and X was fantastic "

X also offered a better view of the world it took place in.

[TheLyonKing]

When he talked about the flashbacks and said take the one with snow at the end of disc one - played it on the ps3 so I forget where it is with no discs?

I haven't played ff 13 in ages but yeah i had mixed thoughts on it and tbh no point thinking how it COULD have been better let square move on from what they did.

[tieryas]

LyonKing, good point! End of Disc 1 corresponds to end of Chapter 4.

[TheLyonKing]

Ah thanks :) I know where he means now.

[Canary]

Top 10? You only need to do two things:

1) give it an entirely different battle system (based off 12)
2) give it an entirely different level design (based off 12)

There. Job done.

[AIndoria]

It was a good game. Not up on the level of VII, VIII, IX, X, but extremely good. Oh, VII is overrated. I feel as if VIII and XIII are both underrated.